


Radio Silence

by Anonymous



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Dean In Peril, Gen, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman and Cesaro have a little off the books chat. Neither of them are very happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radio Silence

The drop off point seemed clear. Cesaro leaned against the flower shop wall and turned the rightmost window ledge tile to its side; the edges briefly glowed read as the device read his fingerprint. Barely seconds later the second streetlight down flickered. That was the countersign and Cesaro frowned. Whatever reason Roman had for staging this meeting, he certainly didn't seem to want to waste any time.

He went over the cipher he'd received from Roman two hours before: Second street drop off. Alone. Black it out. Roman Reigns wasn't the chattiest of men but this was terse even for him.

But he'd agreed to the meeting, too late to take that back now. And Cesaro was curious besides - Roman usually didn't have a taste for this kind of cloak and dagger spycraft.

He scanned the square ahead, trying to judge where Roman would be. It was still early enough for the streets to be mostly deserted, no crowds to blend in with; the rooftops were too low to keep them from being seen from below, so probably not there either. His gaze fell on the five-foot gap between buildings right before the hotel, just before the streets opened up into the square proper. Alleys in this area tended to wind – not all of them, but if you took the time to make yourself familiar you learned which ones were friendly and that one took a hard right into a nook not visible from the street. That might be private enough for whatever this was Roman wanted.

Cesaro squared his shoulders and crossed to the alley side of the street, careful to keep his body language loose. When he passed the alley and a hand grabbed his collar to pull him into the shadows he didn’t fight it, letting Roman drag him back out of view and only pushing him off when Roman slammed him hard against the brick wall. "That wasn’t necessary," he said, straightening out his suit jacket.

"Where _is_ he?" Roman’s tone pulled Cesaro up short. Roman looked terrible, sallow with dark circles under his eyes and like he’d slept in his clothes, if he’d even slept at all. An alarm sounded in his head and Cesaro made very sure to keep his expression neutral. He could see Roman take his silence for denial, the muscle in his jaw going tight. "I know you’ve got Dean doing something for you, he was acting shady and there’s only so many agency people he’d go off book for."

"You know I can’t confirm that."

"I don’t want you to confirm it, I want you to tell me where the hell he is."

Cesaro glanced around the alleyway, noting a red light blinking on the far wall. "Are we secure?"

"I grabbed a bug-killer, we’re scrambled. Were you followed?"

"You know I wasn’t." Cesaro leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "I needed information from a smuggling ring that could only come from the inside," he said, feeling the need to defend himself when Roman rolled his eyes. "Dean excels at those assignments, you know that. He still has contacts, he can blend in better than I ever could."

"Yeah, yeah, Dean gets all the scumbag jobs, I know." Roman raked one hand through his hair, looking almost panicked now that his suspicions were confirmed.

"I can’t tell you anything else. I only told you that much because we’re friends."

"He check in with you yet?"

Oh, Cesaro didn’t like that raw hope in Roman’s voice at all. "No," he admitted. "He has to be dark for this, he’s not due for another thirty-six hours."

"He said he’d check in with me every twelve. He made two and went silent."

"Well if he has been compromised I think we can both guess why." Cesaro knew he shouldn’t have said that, the guilt all over Roman’s face made it clear the thought had occurred to him already. “How many has he missed?”

"Three. Coming up on four. That’s almost two days and that’s not like Dean, you know that. He says he’s going to do something, he does it."

"You can’t _know_ something’s gone…."

"Yeah. I can." Roman had started to pace the length of the alcove. "Goddammit, isn’t putting one partner in front of a bullet already enough for you?" Cesaro felt a quick, stomach-twisting chill rush through him, his hands clenching into fists before he could force his emotions back under control. Roman to his credit seemed almost as stunned he’d blurted that as Cesaro was to hear it, wincing as soon as the last word slipped out. "Sorry. Sorry, I know that’s not ---"

“We will never be close enough friends for you to say something like that.”

Roman put up one hand to cut him off. "Break my jaw for it, I don’t care. Just bring Dean back first. If I could do it myself I would, you have the head start."

Cesaro kept his expression cold. "I’ll make some inquiries. But I hope you’re wrong."

Roman let out a choked little laugh at that. " _You_ hope I’m wrong?" He shook his head, not quite able to meet Cesaro’s eyes. "You have my private channel, right?" Cesaro nodded. "Good. I’ll keep it monitored. Just give me some news, one way or the other."

The mood was too sour for parting pleasantries and Roman stalked out of the alley after a few more awkward seconds, so distracted he left the bug-killer behind. Cesaro stared out after him, counting off the minutes until he could follow. He wanted to be angry at Roman but the creeping unease that had built throughout the conversation made it hard to focus on anything else. Roman had been very right about one thing: when Dean Ambrose promised something you could trust him to always, always follow through. 

Unless of course something was stopping him. Cesaro took out his phone, switched it to private comm mode and sent out the red alert signal to Dean’s line – every agent knew that was to be responded to ASAP, some response, any response, no matter the time of day or night. 

After five minutes of silence Cesaro felt a bead of sweat slide down his back.

After ten he started making calls.


End file.
